


She Was Mine, I Was Hers

by thedeviltohisangel



Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-03-17
Updated: 2020-03-17
Packaged: 2021-03-01 01:40:21
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,748
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23187151
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thedeviltohisangel/pseuds/thedeviltohisangel
Summary: the four times she wore the silk nightgown and the one time she didn't
Relationships: James "Bucky" Barnes & Original Female Character(s)
Kudos: 2





	She Was Mine, I Was Hers

_ One: Who Does She Think She Is? _

It caught her eye in the window of a boutique in London. The fabric looked like it would be soft between her fingers. Between Bucky’s. Lucia knew she shouldn’t fall for the allure of the store window. What if someone saw her walking into a lingerie store? How was she supposed to explain the purchase of a nice, silk teddy but the absence of a partner in her life? She retracted her hand from the handle of the boutique. It wasn’t worth the potential repercussions.

“Excuse me, miss, I noticed you looking in the window. For what it’s worth, that piece would look stunning on you.”

“Yeah?” Lucia poked her head back around the corner to catch a glimpse of it again. “I guess there is no harm in trying it on.” And she did and there was because she fell in love with it. The peach lace with navy blue lace placed over top made her feel beautiful. Lucia knew she was meant to have it.

“Buck? You home?” She was struggling to take her key from the door while holding her new silk purchase and the groceries she had picked up for dinner. After managing to drop everything onto the table she meandered the apartment to look for Bucky. She found him on the back balcony looking out at the traffic down below. “Hungry? I bought the stuff to make that flatbread you liked a couple weeks ago.” He cleared his throat but still didn’t turn to acknowledge her.

“I forgot again. After you left, I was pouring coffee one minute and the next…” Wordlessly, she sat down next to him but kept her distance. 

“I know the episodes upset you but it’s part of the healing process. And they are happening further and farther between-”

“I’m scared one day it won’t be the coffee mug I break.”

“Well, I am near positive that won’t happen but if it does, then we can cross that bridge when it comes. No use in losing sleep over something like that.” She smiled because she was trying to make the conversation more jovial and light. Bucky was his own worst enemy. It wasn’t his fault that he had been turned into who he was had done the things he had. But it was so hard to know that a piece of him had always known he was doing something wrong and had been unable to stop it.

“You’re right,” he reached down and intertwined his fingers with hers, “You need help peeling the zucchini?” He had been experiencing a crash course in modern foods with Lucia. There were more than just Coca-Cola and cheeseburgers at the diner now. Now there were people who ate like cavemen or people who only ate nuts. 

“First, let me show you what bought today.” Bucky smiled as she pecked his lips with a giggle and ran off. He turned back to the sun that was just beginning to set and thought about how he needed to tell her he was leaving London. A man at the sandwich shop that morning had whispered something in Russian while he was picking out his bag of chips. It was time. “Come in here!” He followed the sound of her voice to their bedroom to find her lying on their bed, her head propped in her hand.

“That’s…”

“New, yes. I saw it today and I felt like it was speaking to me. I consider it a gift for both of us.” The sentiment made what he had to tell her even harder to say.

“Lucia...you look beautiful. You are beautiful. Inside and out.” He got on his knees at the end of the bed so their faces were at the same level. “I don’t think I can stay in London with you much longer.” Ashamedly, he looked down at the floor when the words came out of his mouth. He couldn’t find the courage to look her in her eyes.

“What’re you talking about? We’re so happy here...you’re so happy here!” London wasn’t where she had met Bucky but it was where she had fallen in love with him. There was no way for him to explain why it was that he needed to leave. How could he explain his paranoia? How could he explain that it might not actually be paranoia?

“It’s not safe here for me anymore.” She got everything he was trying to say in just that one sentence.

“Then let’s pick somewhere over dinner. We can go anywhere.”

“Lucia, I have to go alone. It’s not safe for you.”

“Do I have to give you the speech again about not being a victim and not needing you to save me and-”

“No, I think I remember it clearly enough.” He laughed at the memory. “You mean it? You want to come with me?” It was hard for him to imagine her wanting to be with him without any ulterior motives.

“You’re my Bucky.” It was as simple as counting to ten in her mind. There was no other way than together.

_ Two: It’s Really Not That Complicated _

“Everyone is staring at me.”

“Because you’re wearing a baseball hat at a bar.” Lucia giggled as Bucky shook his head. They had chosen Mexico for their next hideaway. She had promised him that tourists were incredibly popular and that they would be able to spot someone who didn’t belong easily. She also thought the sun would do him some good. The dreary rain of London was good for hiding and for feeling depressed but that wasn’t conducive to his recovery.

“I think I am much more a fan of the bars from the 40s.” They were a lot more intimate. There’d be a band playing songs meant to dance with your girl to. A soft haze of cigarette smoke that made everything seem dreamy. He thinks Lucia would’ve liked it back then. She could spin in her skirts all she wanted and dance with him to old records from sun up to sun down.

“I always wonder if my nostalgia for the red lips and tight curls of that time would’ve ever really worked for me. Like, would I have still been me if I were around back then?”

“Certainly.” She smiled at his answer. “But I wonder if you would’ve liked me back then.” Out of all the things Bucky hated about his time with the Russians, he thinks the only good thing was that it brought him to her. He would wonder sometimes if she would have liked him as much before he fell off the train. And then he reminded himself there was no use worrying. Because those things had happened. Lucia always told him it wasn’t about forgetting but reconciling. 

“Well, there is only one way to find out.” She stood up and held her hand out to him.

“Lucia-”

“Stop. Whatever you are about to say, just stop. And dance with me, Bucky Barnes.” There was no way he could deny her that. So he stood up and took her hand, letting her drag him into the middle of the dancefloor. Some song about summertime was playing and it all felt too perfect to him. He was still learning how to let himself be happy. 

They danced so long they stopped hearing what song was playing. It faded to the background of their laughs and whispers and beating hearts. She was the numbness he needed after everything he had been through. Cool when he was hot. Steady when he was turbulent. Soft when he was hard. Speaking of soft...Bucky froze where his hand was moving up her back to cup her head.

“Is this silk I feel?” Lucia smiled at him sheepishly.

“I thought it was your new favorite.”

“Everything on you is my favorite.”

_ Three: They’re Chasing Us _

Thailand had always been on her list of places to visit. It was up and coming and trendy. But it was also secluded if you knew the right places to go. After an incident in Mexico where the police had raided the restaurant they were in one night, it was time to be on the move again. 

Bucky had drawn in on himself again. Lucia had thought the seclusion would help him feel more free and able to not shy away from the sun. But it enabled him to rebuild a shell. It had confirmed what his mind had told him that he needed to retreat in order to be safe. Even retreat from her. 

“It’s the things I can’t see that worry me,” he whispered into the dark one night while they were lying in bed.

“The unknown scares us all,” she whispered back. He shook his head.

“It is not the unknown. It is the things I cannot see.” She looked at him, afraid to respond. “The things I do not want to see.”

“Is this about the people who gave you this?” She stroked her fingers down his metal arm. It felt like a part of him. Not the foreign object it actually was. That was a topic she always tried to broach with him. That accepting all that had happened to him made him who he was, made him the man he is and the man she loved, would do more for his healing than rejecting it. 

“More about the people who want to use it now that I’ve got it.” Bucky knew that not just his arm was valuable but so was his mind. If someone knew how to unlock it…

Lucia rolled onto her stomach and gently kissed the center of his forehead. “Your mind is a beautifully tangled web, Bucky Barnes. And I’d be honored to spend the rest of my life trying to untangle it.” He smiled. It made his cheeks sore since he hadn’t used those muscle in the past few days but it felt good. Felt like all the tension he had been holding in since they got to Thailand was let go. 

“How were the elephants today?” She had been so excited to go. Had nearly begged him to go with her. 

“So cute! They are such gentle giants. And there was a little baby one who couldn’t stop eating the fruit they had given us…” she trailed off, “I think the more you can make new memories, good memories, the more the bad ones might go away. There will be no room for them.” He studied her carefully. 

“I love you, Lucia, and I think that is what scares me most of all.” Tears welled in her eyes because she understood. Understood that Bucky had lost regard for his life so many years ago. That he had only just recently regained a sense of being and existence. That he had placed her in a protected space much longer ago. Bucky was worried the key that kept her locked away would be lost. That he would be forced to disregard it in order to ensure her safety and survival.

“Love finds a way. Even if it has to bump against some obstacles every once in awhile. Like a flower through the cracks in the pavement.” She traced the lines of his forehead as if they were the cracks. She hoped his mind would allow the love through. He didn’t answer her with words but with his eyes. They said all she needed to know.

_ Four: Can you walk? _

It was in Amalfi that the restlessness hit her. Like a child that was in the mood to throw a tantrum for no apparent reason. She was tired. Tired of moving. Tired of looking over her shoulder the way Bucky always did. Tired of never feeling like she belonged where they were and that they’d never make a home. 

“Bucky,” she began quietly when they had both finished their dinner’s one night. “I don’t think I can keep moving around like this anymore.” He fumbled with his napkin.

“With me or in general?”

“I want the chance to fall in love with a place and stay there. Have my local farmer’s market and a routine and a job and own something that I can take care of and grow in and raise a family in.”

“Lucia…”

“I know I’m your rock, Buck, I know. But I am starting to crumble which wouldn’t be good for either of us.” It had taken every ounce of courage within her to be honest with herself and him. Lucia had finally realized that feeling like she needed to be his everything was no way to take care of herself. “I think, if you need to leave again...I can’t go with you.” If Bucky thought processing the new world was hard, he was wrong. This made his brain hurt under the strain of her words. 

“You know me. Knew this is what being with me meant.” He shook his head in anger. There. That felt more familiar. That was a feeling he knew well. One he could fall into with comfort and ease. 

“And I thought love would keep me naive to it. But I can’t ignore my wellbeing anymore.”

“What, for the sake of mine? Is that what you want to say?” 

“I deserve the opportunity to be my best self. And that means I need to go back home.” Home. To Bucky that was a place he would never be welcome. A place that housed too many of his demons to count. A place that knew who he had been, maybe who he still was, and would punish him for it.

“I should have never let you in. Never kept you around. I should have listened to all the voices in my head that you tried to speak over.” She opened her mouth to speak but froze when the vibranium pieces of his arm began to whir.

“Bucky…”

“This is why you should be scared of me!” His fist slammed onto the table, splintering it into pieces and causing the glasses and plates to fall with it. Her yelp of surprise stunned him for a moment. But only a moment. Instinct was beginning to take over. If was if she had said her own version of the words in the red book. She had her own way of unlocking the dark recesses of his mind. “I think I’ll leave. So you don’t have to.” 

“I don’t want this to be our last night together.” Lucia reached for him but stopped short at the glance he spared over his shoulder. 

“It has to be.”

He waited until he was sure she would be asleep before sneaking back into the house. He watched the moonlight graze her skin and used all of his willpower to refrain his hand from doing the same. It had to be a clean break. Cold turkey. Otherwise it would be too late and he would never be able to separate himself from her. For both their sake’s it had to be done. 

The last thing he placed into his backpack was her silk nightgown she had bought with him in mind all those years ago. It was selfish. But Bucky knew the pain of forgetting. And maybe this would help ease it.

_ Five: She was mine. I was hers. _

He thinks he should have known Steve was coming before he actually did. But his friend had always been a blind spot for him. Just as he had her. It had been a couple of months since Italy. He was in Budapest now. It felt safer without her. He only had himself to worry about. 

Which was why he didn’t hesitate to fight the soldiers that were streaming into the box he was calling his apartment. He fought and he fought and he fought until the only release he could find was a guttural yell from his chest. They thought he had blown up that meeting in New York. Didn’t they know he didn’t do that anymore? Did Lucia think he was responsible for it? Oh how he wished he could let her know it wasn’t him. 

“We gotta go, Buck,” Steve yelled as he got word they were about to start coming in from the windows. Bucky smashed his fist through the floorboard and pulled out a backpack. Steve’s eye caught a peek of a spring colored silk. “Who is she?”

“Was. And she was mine. And I was hers.”

**Author's Note:**

> please let me know if you want to see more of these two!


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